Twelve-year-old Aerial Towles has been attending CeCe Winans’ Always Sisters, Forever Brothers conference since she was 6, and for her, every year is always different and new.

“It’s about learning how to trust God in your life and the different situations that you’re going through,” the Nashville resident said. “He will get you through the obstacles in your life.”

Towles was one of about 3,000 young people ages 12 to 26 at Belmont University this weekend for the sixth consecutive youth conference, a three-day event aimed at helping attendees make positive life choices.
The conference has been held at Belmont every year except for the first year, when it was at a hotel, said Demetrus Stewart, one of the event’s planners. Topics discussed this year included fatherlessness, domestic violence in youth relationships, sex and sexually transmitted diseases.

James Lowe, Winans’ brother-in-law and pastor of Bethel World Outreach Church in Brentwood, spent about a half-hour talking about abstinence.

“God kept me a virgin until marriage,” said Lowe, who will celebrate his 17th wedding anniversary in December and has three boys, ages 5, 7 and 9. “We have to let these kids know that peer pressure doesn’t mean they have to give in.”

Lowe, like Winans, believes one of the biggest issues facing youth today is fatherlessness.

“When a family is not together, it affects our communities, our cities and our nation,” Winans said. “We have to bring people together and talk to the moms, the dads and the kids. Once we do that, we can fix the mistakes and we can make them understand that the cycle can be broken.”

Free event

As part of this year’s conference, event planners arranged a lunch for mothers of teen girls and a men’s dinner. Every child at the conference under 18 had to be accompanied by a guardian. During the Saturday afternoon session, Winans announced that she’d like to make the conference a family affair next year, bringing cheers from those in attendance.

The conference began with a worship service on Thursday evening. On Friday and Saturday, there were five sessions per day. This year’s event was free for attendees. In previous years, there was a registration fee of $65 per person, Stewart said.

“We realized that there were many kids who couldn’t afford to come, and we wanted to make it easier this year,” said Stewart, a Goodlettsville resident who has been with Winans since 1999, managing her gospel career and record company.

“When we first started this conference, we thought it would be mostly kids from Tennessee, but we’ve been surprised that 85 percent of those who join us are from other states.”

This year, kids came from 27 states. There also was a group of 40 kids from Australia.

“The biggest takeaway for me are the stories that come out of these conferences,” Stewart said. “Last year, we had a boy from Ohio here. He had been in some trouble and his mom made him come. ... When he got home he gave his mom the pills and suicide letters he’d written before he left. He had intended to take his life when he returned from the conference, but he didn’t go through with it.”

Winans hopes the big takeaway for the kids is living for God.

“It’s really the best way to live because it affects everything that we do,” she said.

For first-time attendee Jay Singliterry, 12, of St. Louis, this year’s conference was an experience worth sharing.

“I’m going to tell all my friends to come,” he said. “I’ve had a wonderful time with all the music, prayers and youth gathering from everywhere. The biggest thing is to listen because this will probably change you.”